CARB goes after defeat devices amid ongoing diesel woes

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The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is promising to take enforcement action against automakers that could be using defeat device software similar to Volkswagen's to circumvent state air pollution regulations, Bloomberg reports. The statement from the agency comes several days after reports of more defeat devices discovered in a number of gasoline and diesel-engined Audi models.

A CARB spokesman did not comment on any current investigations, but also stated that "CARB will aggressively pursue the investigation and require the manufacturer to correct the violations at its own expense," according to Bloomberg.

Following the outbreak of the VW diesel crisis in September 2015, CARB moved to retest gasoline and diesel models for compliance with the state's environmental laws, and has played a crucial part in negotiations with VW leading to the settlement deal in April. So far CARB has not singled out any models aside from VW, Audi and Porsche (all part of the VW Group) as posessing illegal software that varies emissions outputs.

German prosecutors have expanded their VW market manipulation investigation to supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch. The probe itself was launched this spring after prodding by major VW ...

The German Ministry of Transport (KBA) announced this week it has not received any information from its U.S. counterpart in regards to the additional defeat devices in Audi models; a representative from Audi declined to comment on the matter citing ongoing negotiations with U.S. agencies.

The sudden resurgence of reports of defeat devices comes amid an expansion of a Lower Saxony prosecutorial probe into the financial aspects of the diesel scandal, which has now enveloped VW supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch. While the probe is largely a matter of legal reporting requirements and executives' duties to shareholders under German law, the expansion of the investigation comes amid growing uncertainty and unease over the 3.0-liter diesel issue in the U.S. Several sources have indicated to news outlets including Reuters that up to 21,000 older VW Touareg and Audi Q7 3.0 TDI vehicles could face a buyback program due the difficulty and expense of implementing a technical fix, which has yet to materialize.